ISIS

by Jessica Stern

  Matthew Barber, a scholar of Yazidi history at the University of Chicago, estimates that as many as 7,000 women were taken captive in August 2014.83 According to ISIS, the practice of forcing the Yazidis and other religious minorities into sexual slavery is a way to prevent the sin of premarital sex or adultery, as well as a sign that the Final Battle will soon occur. In the fourth issue of Dabiq, an article titled “The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour” explains that polytheist and pagan women can and should be enslaved. Indeed, their enslavement is one of the “signs of the hour as well as one of the causes of al Malhalah al Kubra,” the Final Battle that will take place in Dabiq.84 Further, they wrote, “a number of contemporary scholars have mentioned that the desertion of slavery had led to an increase in fāhishah (sexual sins such as adultery or fornication), because the shar’īa alternative to marriage is not available, so a man who cannot afford marriage to a free woman finds himself surrounded by temptation towards sin. . . . May Allah bless this Islamic State with the revival of further aspects of the religion occurring at its hands.”85

  Below are some of ISIS’s answers about its theological justifications for sexual slaves and how to keep them:

  “There is no dispute among the scholars that it is permissible to capture unbelieving women [who are characterized by] original unbelief [kufr asli], such as the kitabiyat [women from among the People of the Book, i.e., Jews and Christians] and polytheists. However, [the scholars] are disputed over [the issue of] capturing apostate women. The consensus leans towards forbidding it, though some people of knowledge think it permissible. We [ISIS] lean towards accepting the consensus. . . .”86

  “It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with the female captive. Allah the almighty said: ‘[Successful are the believers] who guard their chastity, except from their wives or (the captives and slaves) that their right hands possess, for then they are free from blame [Koran 23:5–6].’ . . .”87

  “If she is a virgin, he [her master] can have intercourse with her immediately after taking possession of her. However, if she isn’t, her uterus must be purified [first]. . . .”88

  “It is permissible to buy, sell, or give as a gift female captives and slaves, for they are merely property, which can be disposed of as long as that doesn’t cause [the Muslim ummah] any harm or damage.”89

  “It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn’t reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse; however if she is not fit for intercourse, then it is enough to enjoy her without intercourse.”90

  ACCORDING TO ESTEEMED political psychologist Vamik Volkan, collective historical trauma can predispose a society toward violence, identity politics (in the form of hatred of an out-group), and the rise of paranoid leadership and ideologies. The memories of this collective trauma become part of a shared myth, and what Volkan calls a “chosen trauma.”91 Volkan also sees a role for societal humiliation and cultural group psychology in the Middle East as contributors to paths of mass radicalization.92

  Within Iraq and Syria, ISIS has a rich vein of collective historical traumas on which to draw in consolidating its position and certainly the outcomes Volkan describes (violence, paranoia, and identity politics) correspond closely to the reality of ISIS today. Such traumas can lead to the selection of values, sacred or otherwise, that justify “purification” of the world. Once such paranoid leaders arise, they can neutralize “individual moral constraints against personal perpetration of suffering, torturing and murder,” psychiatrist Otto Kernberg explains.93

  In addition to whatever benefits ISIS can extract from the traumas suffered by Iraqis and Syrians (some of which were instigated by ISIS and its predecessors), it is also inflicting an ongoing collective trauma of nearly apocalyptic proportions on those same populations. The longer that ISIS rules its domain, the deeper and more catastrophic those traumas will become.

  While ISIS may not articulate its reasons in this manner, we believe it is deliberately engaged in a process of blunting empathy, attracting individuals already inclined toward violence, frightening victims into compliance, and projecting this activity out to the wider world. The long-term effects of its calculated brutality are likely to be severe, with higher rates of various forms of PTSD, increased rates of secondary psychopathy, and, sadly, still more violence.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE COMING FINAL BATTLE?

  Many Muslims anticipate that the end of days is here, or will be here soon. In a 2012 Pew poll, in most of the countries surveyed in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, half or more Muslims believe that they will personally witness the appearance of the Mahdi. In Islamic eschatology, the messianic figure known as the Mahdi (the Guided One) will appear before the Day of Judgment. This expectation is most common in Afghanistan (83 percent), followed by Iraq (72), Tunisia (67), and Malaysia (62).1

  Historically, narratives of the apocalypse have occupied a relatively marginal role in Sunni Islam, as distinct from Shi’ism. For Sunnis, the Mahdi is not yet here. For most Shi’ites, the Mahdi has already been born, but is now hidden, and when he reveals himself, justice will prevail.2 The 1979 Iranian Revolution is considered by some Shi’ites to be an early sign of the Mahdi’s appearance. For both Sunnis and Shi’ites, the Mahdi’s role is, in part, to end the disunity of the Muslim community and to prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ, who is understood to be a prophet in Islam.

  Jean-Pierre Filiu, an expert on Islamic eschatology, observes that popular pamphlets and tracts “colored with superstition” have always circulated, but “until recently [their] impact on political and theological thinking was practically nil” among Sunnis.3 A conscious effort to connect these narratives to current events can be traced, however, to at least the early 1980s, when Abdullah Azzam, an architect of modern jihad, argued that Muslims should join the jihad in Afghanistan, which he considered to be a sign that the end times were imminent.4

  For years, al Qaeda invoked apocalyptic predictions in both its internal and external messaging, by using the name Khorasan, a region that includes part of Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, and from which, it is prophesied, the Mahdi will emerge alongside an army bearing black flags. Internal al Qaeda documents and communiqués from Osama bin Laden often listed his location as Khorasan, and more recently, an al Qaeda cell in Syria adopted the name.5 These claims were, however, mostly symbolic.

  ISIS has begun to evoke the apocalyptic tradition much more explicitly, through actions as well as words. Thus ISIS has captured Dabiq, a town understood in some versions of the narrative to be a possible location for the final apocalyptic battle, and declared its intent to conquer Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), in keeping with prophecy.6

  For ISIS, and AQI before it, an important feature of the narrative is the expectation of sectarian war. Will McCants, a historian of early Islam, explains: “The early Islamic apocalyptic prophecies are intrinsically sectarian because they arose from similar sectarian conflicts in early Islam waged in Iraq and the Levant. As such, they resonate powerfully in today’s sectarian civil wars.”7

  Hassan Abbas, an expert on jihadi movements, observes, “ISIS is trying deliberately to instigate a war between Sunnis and Shi’a, in the belief that a sectarian war would be a sign that the final times have arrived. In the eschatological literature, there is reference to crisis in Syria and massacre of Kurds—this is why Kobane is important. ISIS is exploiting these apocalyptic expectations to the fullest,” he said. It is also why it was so important for ISIS to establish a caliphate, he explains. That too is a sign in their worldview.8

  WHILE MUSLIM APOCALYPTIC thought is diverse and complex, most narratives contain some elements that would be easily recognized by Christians and Jews: at an undetermined time in the future the world will end, a messianic figure will return to the earth, and God will pass judgment on all people, justly relegating some to heaven and some to hell.

  Considerable diversity exists, however, in writings about what will precede this f
inal judgment. David Cook is a leading authority on Muslim eschatology. Because the Qur’an “is not an apocalyptic book,” he explains, writers have been forced to turn to supplementary materials—including the words attributed to Muhammad, the Bible, global conspiracy theories about Judaism, stories of UFO abductions, and theories about the Bermuda Triangle—when discussing “the confused period” that comes before these final events.9

  Cook explains that the events in this period are typically described as Lesser Signs of the Hour and Greater Signs of the Hour. The Lesser Signs are “moral, cultural, political, religious, and natural events designed to warn humanity that the end is near and to bring people into a state of repentance.”10 These signs tend to be so general that it is possible to find indicators of them in any modern society (for example, crime, natural disaster, etc.).

  The Greater Signs, by contrast, offer a more detailed account of the final days, and while there is considerable variation among these stories, a few elements are consistent: Constantinople will be conquered by Muslims; the Antichrist will appear and travel to Jerusalem; a messianic figure (in some instances Jesus, and in some instances the Mahdi) will come to earth, kill the Antichrist, and convert the masses to Islam. The world’s non-Muslim territories will be conquered.11

  Many contemporary writers concerned with the apocalypse resent the suggestion that they are somehow affiliated with or participating in terrorist violence, Cook observes. But it would be naïve to deny the increasing role that this literature has played in contemporary jihad. Since September 11, he says, these writers have come to focus increasingly on Iraq—thus relegating Afghanistan and Israel to positions of lesser importance—and have implied that the American invasion was a sign of the coming apocalypse.12

  This isn’t to suggest that Israel has become insignificant in these narratives; much of this writing is virulently anti-Semitic and assumes a worldwide Jewish conspiracy against Muslims. In the new formulation, however, America is understood to be “the more or less willing instrument of Israel.”13

  ISIS is using apocalyptic expectation as a key part of its appeal. “If you think all these mujahideen came from across the world to fight Assad, you’re mistaken. They are all here as promised by the Prophet. This is the war he promised—it is the Grand Battle,” a Sunni Muslim told Reuters.

  Another purported sign is the movement into Syria of the pro-Assad Hezbollah militia, whose flag is yellow. “As Imam Sadeq has stated, when the (forces) with yellow flags fight anti-Shi’ites in Damascus and Iranian forces join them, this is a prelude and a sign of the coming of his holiness,” Rohollah Hosseinian, an Iranian cleric and member of Parliament, explained.14

  The New York Times interviewed dozens of Tunisian youth, who are disproportionately represented among foreign fighters with ISIS, and found that messianic expectation was part of the appeal. “There are lots of signs that the end will be soon, according to the Quran,” a twenty-four year-old said.15 Almost none of the interviewees believed that ISIS was involved in mass killings or beheadings. “All of this is manufactured in the West,” a twenty-eight-year-old taxi driver said.16 All of the youth viewed the existing Arab governments as autocratic and corrupt. They complained that there were no pure scholars of Islam whose views were untainted by politics or allegiance to some form of earthly power; but at the same time noted that the absence of uncorrupted Islamic scholars could be yet another sign of the coming apocalypse. Another sign for these youth was ISIS’s declaration of the caliphate.17

  ABU MUSAB AL SURI, one of the most important strategists of jihad, whom we have discussed throughout this book, incorporated apocalyptic narratives in his writings. His famous book, A Call to a Global Islamic Resistance, is not only the template for “individual jihad,” but contains many pages of apocalyptic predictions. Filiu observes that the book, advertised as “Your Path to Jihad,” was meant to attract a very wide readership of ordinary Muslims, not just committed Salafis.

  “As against al-Qaida’s adventurism and centralized elitism, which in [al Suri’s] view renders it vulnerable at its very core, Abu Musab al-Suri proposes a distributed network model of decentralized resistance that reflects and responds to the aspirations of ordinary Muslims.”18 To that end, according to Filiu, al Suri included a discourse on the apocalypse, which, as he shows, has become increasingly popular, especially after 9/11 and the allied invasion of Iraq.19

  “There is nothing in the least theoretical about this exercise in apocalyptic exegesis,” Filiu observes in regard to al Suri’s apocalyptic writings. “It is meant as a guide for action: ‘I have no doubt that we have entered into the age of tribulations. The reality of this moment enlightens us to the significance of such events. . . . We will be alive then, when Allah’s order comes. And we shall obey what Allah has commanded.’”20

  Zarqawi set about fulfilling al Suri’s prophecies, even going so far as to publish communiqués detailing the fulfillment of specific predictions.21 He used apocalyptic imagery more than any other contemporary jihadist, Cook explains, much more so than bin Laden or Zawahiri.22 Baghdadi, the successor to Zarqawi, is taking the fulfillment of apocalyptic portents even more seriously than his predecessor.

  In the summer of 2014, ISIS fought to capture Dabiq, a Syrian town close to the Turkish border, and released the first issue of its English-language magazine, called Dabiq, in July. Its editors explained that they anticipate that Dabiq will play a historical role in the period leading to the Final Day, but first it was necessary to purify the town and to raise the black flags of the caliphate there.23 Now that allied forces have entered the battle, the jihadists anticipate that the final battle in Dabiq is drawing near, McCants explains, and both Shi’a and Sunni groups hope to achieve the privilege of destroying the infidels.24

  In ISIS’s November 2014 video announcing the death of Abdul-Rahman (Peter) Kassig, a twenty-six-year-old former U.S. Army ranger, a British executioner claimed that Kassig had been killed at Dabiq. He also said, “Here we are burying the first American crusader in Dabiq, eagerly waiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive.”25

  Why is ISIS’s obsession with the end of the world so important for us to understand? For one thing, violent apocalyptic groups tend to see themselves as participating in a cosmic war between good and evil, in which ordinary moral rules do not apply.26 Most terrorist groups worry about offending their human audience with acts of violence that are too extreme. This was true even for bin Laden and al Qaeda Central, who withdrew their support for the Algerian terrorist group GIA and admonished AQI for their violence against Muslims, as we have seen.

  But violent apocalyptic groups are not inhibited by the possibility of offending their political constituents because they see themselves as participating in the ultimate battle. Apocalyptic groups are the most likely terrorist groups to engage in acts of barbarism, and to attempt to use rudimentary weapons of mass destruction. Their actions are also significantly harder to predict than the actions of politically motivated groups. The logic of ISIS is heavily influenced by its understanding of prophecy. The military strategic value of Dabiq has little to do with ISIS’s desire for a confrontation there.

  While most new religious movements that emphasize apocalyptic prophecy are not violent, the deliberate inculcation of apocalyptic fears often precedes violence. Two types of violence can occur: violence perpetrated by members against the membership, such as mass suicide; and violence against the outside world.

  The American apocalyptic group Heaven’s Gate is an example of a suicidal cult.27 In 1997, 39 members committed mass suicide in an effort to join a group of aliens on their spacecraft, which cult members believed was following the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet. In 1993, more than 80 followers of David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidian cult, died in a fire they set themselves after a fifty-one-day standoff with federal agents.28 Koresh had predicted, based on his reading of the book of Revelation, that his followers would achieve salvation as a result of violence at his compound
.29 The breakaway Catholic organization known as the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God anticipated the end of the world in the year 2000. Soon after adherents arrived at church on the anticipated end of the world, the church burned down. Ugandan authorities suspected mass suicide, but when they found signs that some adherents had been poisoned or strangled, they concluded that the cause of death was murder.30

  It is not easy to determine which apocalyptic groups will turn violent, or which violent groups will turn even more so. Michael Barkun, a leading scholar on violent apocalyptic groups, explains:

  Predictions of violence on the basis of beliefs alone are notoriously unreliable. Inflammatory rhetoric can come from otherwise peaceable individuals. It does appear, however, that apocalypticists are more likely to engage in violence if they believe themselves to be trapped or under attack. Both conditions are as much a product of their own perception as of outside forces.”31

  The group responsible for the 1979 Meccan Rebellion, a small sect led by Juhayman al ’Utaybi, is an example of a Muslim apocalyptic cult. Its leader, Juhayman, was a member of the Bedouin tribe that had participated in the Ikhwan Revolt in the 1920s, the aim of which was to return Saudi Arabia to its pure, Wahhabist roots. In November 1979, Juhayman’s followers laid siege to the Grand Mosque compound in Mecca, a sacred site in Islam, which they held for two full weeks. Hundreds of people died during the siege. Most of the perpetrators were summarily executed or imprisoned, and the Saudi government kept the details regarding the perpetrators’ motivations secret.

  Some twenty-five years later, Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian scholar of Islam, was able to piece together what occurred. The cult was inspired by the teachings of Nasir al-Din al Albani, a quietist Salafi who advocated a return to the pure Islam of the Quran and the Hadith. In his view, most of the Saudi Salafis, who considered themselves to be followers of the “pious predecessors,” were actually influenced by later interpretations rather than the original texts. Al Albani eschewed politics and violence, and the cult began with the same quietist tendencies.